Category Archives: 2012

*This blog post highlights the third book in an on-going series. Some of the information provided for context might contain spoilers for events that occurred in the previous two books.*

Quest “Q” Munoz and Angela Tucker are just your normal, everyday teenagers – with rock star parents and inside connections to Secret Service operations, of course. This is the third book in Smith’s action-packed I, Q series. The first two books, I, Q: Independence Hall and I, Q: The White House, were set in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. respectively. For this next installment, Smith selected the smaller, but still historic, town of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. His series is aimed toward younger readers, but people of any age could find interest in Smith’s colorful cast of characters.

At the start of the series, Q’s mom, Blaze Munoz, married Angela’s dad, Roger Tucker. Angela’s mother, Malak Turner, a former Secret Service agent, is dead, and Q’s father, Peter “Speed” Paulsen, is a limelight-loving rock star. The happy couple formed a new band called Match and released a hit single, which prompted a nation-wide tour. Step-siblings Q and Angela are along for the ride, which has proven much bumpier and more suspenseful than expected. In the first book, they meet Tyrone Boone and his huge, slobbery dog, Croc. Boone, a roadie, is charged with looking after Q and Angela. But Boone is more than an old roadie; he’s a retired CIA agent with his an independent team of agents called SOS, or Some Old Spooks. And Boone has plenty of suspicions surrounding Angela’s mother’s death. Or supposed death…

By the third book, Q, Angela, Blaze, Roger, and the SOS group are in Washington, D.C. for a special concert at the White House. But a terrorist ghost cell has kidnapped President J.R. Culpepper’s daughter, Bethany; they plan to use her in a hostage video against the U.S. government. So Q, Angela, and the SOS team chase the terrorists down I-95 to rescue the president’s daughter. Unfortunately, there is a brutal hurricane headed right in their direction. SOS has help from a few other sources luckily, including Angela’s very alive mom, Malak, who is working to infiltrate the terrorist group. Yet Boone and Croc have some eerie talents and are pretty capable of taking care of themselves.

Smith sets a fast pace to the story. The book spans a single day with chapters segmented roughly into hour or two-hour blocks to keep the sense of urgency high. However, Smith cuts the tension with moments of humor, especially when Q’s father Speed shows up and almost derails the whole chase. With distractions like ostentatious rockers and violent hurricanes, Smith leaves his audience on the edge of their seats, turning page after page. Will Q, Angela, and the SOS team save Bethany in time? Or will the ghost cell succeed in their scheme?

In the winter of 1864-65 Wilmington, North Carolina was the last open Confederate port on the Atlantic Coast and as such it was an important lifeline for the Confederacy. Wilmington was protected by a huge earthwork fort eighteen miles downstream, Fort Fisher. Every man in the fort knew that it was only a matter of time before the Union launched a coordinated attack on the fort and that the attack would involve the massing war ships of the Union navy and a sizable landing force of veteran fighters. It isn’t hard to imagine how the men in the fort felt as they anticipated the battle of their lives. But what would others at the fort–civilians–be thinking? Dead Man’s Clothes attempts to answer that by imagining how the battle would have been experienced by three boys, Willie, Jeremy, and Tom. The boys are orphans who have attached themselves to the Confederate encampment at the fort. By performing personal chores for the soldiers, begging, and scrounging leftover food, clothes, and provisions, the boys attempt to stay alive in that cold winter. Their survival is as precarious as their loyalty to each other is strong. Knowing that a great battle is coming, Willie has made a hideout for himself and his friends. But how successful can a boy be in anticipating the chaos and horrors of a naval bombardment and a massive invasion? Dead Man’s Clothes provides readers with an interesting perspective on a well known battle.

Delaney Sutton used to love her job. A professional firefighter living in Richmond, Virginia, she has been passionately dedicated to saving lives for years. Now, at twenty-six, she’s reached a crossroads. Firefighting has always been her dream, but with the death of her friend and co-worker, Hal, in a fire that also injured her severely, Delaney is unsure and worn out. Her chief decides she needs a forced vacation at the same time that her sisters are planning their annual Sisterhood Sojourn to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Delaney gives in and goes with them.

Her four weeks in Avon on Hatteras Island are supposed to be relaxing. Unfortunately, her three sisters have other ideas about what she needs– well, one idea. A man. Luckily for them, Gareth Collins arrives almost within a day of the four women, and the Sutton sisters waste no time in hounding their youngest about how cute he is. Delaney has to agree, but she just doesn’t know if she wants a relationship right now. She hasn’t been able to sleep properly since Hal’s death, about which she keeps having post-traumatic flashbacks. Gareth realizes something isn’t entirely right with the pretty youngest Sutton sister, so he tries to take it slow, encouraging her to open up to him a little at a time. Is love really the medicine Delaney needs?

Charlotte Hale has lead an outwardly enormously successful life, building her own real-estate company in Asheville, North Carolina from scratch. Her rise from the poor daughter of a drunkard in the tiny mountain town of Trust to a wealthy mogul is the stuff of which American legends are made. Unfortunately, while the financial and business portions of her life have been rich, her personal life has suffered greatly. Her twenty-seven year old daughter, Taylor, cut her mother out of her life when she became pregnant at seventeen, and Charlotte has never met her granddaughter. Similarly, Charlotte has not spoken to her ex-husband, Ethan, since he left their marriage to support their daughter during that time.

Charlotte has never regretted her actions, moving ahead with confidence. Until the day that she is diagnosed with an acute form of leukemia, and realizes that life is too short and precious to waste on anger. She begins to focus on the important parts of life, and to attempt to rebuild many of the relationships she damaged, including those with her ex-husband and daughter. Along the way, she reaches out to a young, pregnant woman named Harmony, who is a complete stranger to her, but who desperately needs help. Since she refused to help Taylor so many years ago, opening her home to Harmony is a way of partially absolving her sins. But it doesn’t help everything–Charlotte still knows that the greatest reconciliation, and the hardest, is with the blood kin whom she betrayed. Will Taylor ever be able to forgive her mother?

Part of the Goddesses Anonymous series from Harlequin, this thoughtful novel encourages the reader to reconsider what’s most important in life before it’s too late.

Army captain Jenna Larson is an ace Black Hawk helicopter pilot on her way from Fort Drum in New York to Kabul Airbase in Afghanistan. Stuck at Fort Bragg in North Carolina for three days before heading out, Jenna finds herself running into the same handsome serviceman over and over. Her nosy Warrant Officer and best friend, Laura Costanza, ID’s him– he’s Chase Rawlins, a soon-to-be-deployed, serious-minded special ops officer. When Jenna next sees him at a local bar, he seems just as attracted to her as she is to him. One thing leads to another. Jenna files the memorable encounter away in her head for later, when she’s running dangerous missions in Afghanistan. She never thinks she’ll see Chase Rawlins again.

In fact, she’d be surprised to learn that she has never met Chase Rawlins to begin with. Her tryst was not with him, but with his identical twin brother Chance– a hot-headed, devilish Apache helicopter pilot. When Jenna’s path crosses that of the real Chase in Afghanistan, she’s surprised and disappointed but stoic about his blank response to her presence…until she runs into Chance the same day. Chance hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Jenna, and when he finally sets her case of mistaken identity to rights, she isn’t pleased. Jenna has rules about sleeping with other pilots. Will Chance get a second chance with Jenna? And is their budding romance able to withstand both Afghanistan and the United States Army’s strict regulations?

Readers met Chelsea Davenport and Kyle Davis as teenagers in Mary Flinn’s first book, The One. The young couple married in Three Gifts and they are well settled in their marriage and their careers as A Forever Man opens. As readers of the previous books know, Chelsea and Kyle are surrounded by family and friends, and the pair and those in their circle have faced a number of challenges and disappointments.

When the interior design expert in Kyle’s building company retires, Kyle and his partner Frank are delighted to hire Elise Masters, a talented twenty-something who was recently let go by a large Charlotte firm. Since Kyle’s firm is so small, he and Elise often work together–meeting clients, assessing sites, and working nearby each other in the office. Elise has a past that she is not eager to talk about, and a child who has special needs. Kyle feels protective of Elise and her daughter, Lydia, but he feels something more too. Kyle’s feeling may be hidden, but friends and business associates can see that Elise is smitten with Kyle–Kyle is the “forever man” that Elise has been looking for.

Chelsea can sense that this new colleague poses a temptation for Kyle, and the situation is complicated by friends’ gossip, family crises, and the revelation that Lydia’s father is nearby. Seeing how Kyle and Chelsea navigate this difficult situation will remind readers that “happily ever after” is really “happy if we continue to work at it”–growing together, drawing strength from what has been, and keeping that passionate spark alive.

Elizabeth Margaret (“Em”) has her whole life in front of her–and every step of it has been mapped out by her high-achieving, status-seeking parents and maternal grandmother. Advanced placement classes in high school, admission to Harvard, summer internships at dad’s law firm, a career in law or medicine. Em and her sister Gwenny laugh at their parents’ pretensions but neither girl dares to jump off the path that their parents have charted for them. But they do dream about it.

Em sees a chance to step off the treadmill for at least a few weeks when she receives an invitation to spend the summer with her Aunt Tilly on the Outer Banks. The invitation unsettles Em’s mother and grandmother. Aunt Tilly has never been mentioned by either woman. After phone calls back and forth between Boston and the Outer Banks, a compromise is reached: Em can go south for a month, but she must come back to Boston to spend the second half of her summer vacation at the law firm.

Em doesn’t know what to expect, but she’s up for whatever it is. Or maybe not. Aunt Tilly is as fun loving as her parents are uptight; the staff at the B&B that Aunt Tilly owns are like a family; Em gets a chance to practice her culinary skills; and there are not one but two handsome boys to hangout with. But as Em spends time with her aunt and the B&B staff she learns how each got to this place, and not all the stories are happy ones. Parents die, children are separated from their families, and not everyone who has a child is ready to be a parent. This summer on the Outer Banks will change Em’s life forever.

When you’re in high school, things can seem very black-or-white. Girl cheats on her boyfriend who is a Marine on duty in Afghanistan, she’s trash. When that boyfriend is MIA after a firefight, the whole town shuns her and calls her ugly names. Since this girl is the child of a woman who ran off with another man, even her own father treats her with a cold disdain. Like mother, like daughter.

This is Sophie Topper Quinn’s life. Quinn–the name her father insists on–has learned to accept her father’s cold manner. In the years since her mother left, Quinn has wondered what role she might have played in her mother’s departure. She can’t say that her father’s behavior is unreasonable, but she is shocked to find herself so on her own after a photo surfaces on Facebook that shows her kissing someone other than Carey Breen. No one knows that Quinn turned to someone else after Carey told her her that he was gay and asked her help in covering that for him in their small military town.

To keep Quinn out of trouble, her dad arranges for her to volunteer at the Veterans Administration Hospital in nearby Fayetteville. There she becomes friends with George Wilkins, a retired military photographer. George recognizes Quinn’s talent and enlists her to work with him on the Veterans History Project. Quinn’s edgy defensiveness does not put off George and as their friendship grows, he helps her navigate additional curve balls–like her mother’s return–that come her way.

Although If I Lie focuses on how Quinn responds the turmoil in her life, readers also get a look into the lives of other characters, particularly George, Quinn’s mother, and Carey’s best friend, Blake. All have behaved in ways that they regret, without mercy or grace to themselves or those closest to them. By placing this coming-of-age novel in a military town in the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell Era, Corrine Jackson has produced a book that will engage both young adult and mature readers.

Doctor Erin Wilson is intelligent, savvy, and dedicated to her profession. At the young age of twenty-seven, she has already graduated from Harvard Medical School and runs a successful practice in Raleigh, North Carolina. But her life is far from perfect. Her younger sister, Lani, is in and out of both financial troubles and relationships, and Lani expects Erin to pick up the pieces from both. Her mother has passed away and her father is in a nursing home, so it’s up to Erin to support everyone. She doesn’t feel sorry for herself, however– she’s worked hard, and it’s paid off.

Marc Newton has also worked hard. Breaking into the top fifteen drivers in the National Car Racing Federation is no easy task, especially without any connections or money. Of course, Marc has money now. His rise to the top came with certain perks, such as sponsors, and those who wanted to buy into his personal brand. Unfortunately, one crash too many has him seeing spots. A sponsor-mandated visit to a local doctor specializing in orthopedics has him steaming when she issues her orders–rest for two weeks, and no racing! He’s matching wits with none other than Dr. Erin Wilson, who is seemingly immune to his charm. Worst of all, he’s attracted to the brainy, good-looking woman–and she’s not even his type!

Erin hasn’t had a man in her life for years, but is now the time, and is Marc Newton really the one? She finds him arrogant, aggressive, and absolutely attractive. Will they each be able to overcome their own personal demons and find happiness? Or despite their mutual desires, will their problems keep them apart? This steamy romance novel will keep you guessing, and get your heart racing.

In this, the concluding installment in the Bounty Cove Chronicles, all the couples we have come to know in the previous five novels must work together to defeat the evil that has been feeding on their kind for aeons.

At fifteen years old, Lily Sullivan is nothing but trouble. The feisty red-headed teenager’s obsession with her good-for-nothing boyfriend Trevor finally causes her father to take action–he sends her to live with her Aunt Tess in the small town of Bounty Cove, North Carolina. Within a year, Lily has forgotten Trevor and fallen in love with Colby, a quiet local boy who doesn’t push or pressure her. But then Colby moves away. He promises he’ll be back for her, and Lily believes him, but it still breaks her heart. Twenty years later, a man collapses on her doorstep– it’s Colby, finally able to return to the one woman he never stopped thinking about. Now that they’re back together, nothing can stand in the way of their love.

Or so they think. A dangerous evil that has been haunting Bounty Cove for ages is rising, and Colby is its target. Bounty Cove has always been a strange crossroads between what regular humans believe in and what actually exists. Until now, no one has been able to explain why; those affected have simply had to accept the strangeness of their abilities, or those of their significant other, and move on. Now, everything is going to become horrifyingly clear and it’s not only Colby and Lily who are in danger, but all of Bounty Cove. Will Colby, Lily, Devil, Angeline, Natali, Britt, and the others be able to stop the malevolent force seeking to destroy their lives after they have worked so hard for peace?